FAQ: Personal Injury

What is a Personal Injury claim?

A Personal Injury claim arises any time you are injured in your body. This may occur in a numerous situations, today we refer to Personal Injury claim when your body is injured as a result of the negligence of someone else. The legal community uses different set of words to refer to bodily injuries that are a result of intentional acts of others, namely Assault and Battery.

How do I know that I may have a right to be compensated?

Your right to be compensated usually depends on a careful assessment of what happened and some common sense. After careful assessment of the facts of the incident, the question to be determined is who was careful and who was careless. This essentially means that ultimately the person at fault has to be identified.

Can I still be compensated even if the accident was partly my fault?

Even if you might have partly caused an accident yourself, you can still receive compensation from anyone else that was careless and partly caused the accident. The person who is assessed a bigger share of carelessness will be responsible to compensate the other with a lesser share of fault or carelessness in causing the incident.

What should I do when I am first injured in an incident?

The first thing you should do is to calm yourself and quickly assess your condition. If your condition is such that you must immediately seek medical attention, you should do so. If your condition is not as bad, you should take a mental note of all the Who, What, Where, and When questions. You may wish to preserve your mental notes in writing for future reference. If you are involved in an automobile accident, you must exchange your information with the other driver.

What is included in my compensation?

You as an injured person should be paid for all that you have suffered because of the incident. This typically includes the expenses for your medical care, the cost of repair for damages to any of your personal property and the cost of renting a comparable item for the duration of it's repair, the cost of the income you have lost for being unable to attend to work, and the temporary and permanent pain and other physical discomfort that you have experienced as a result of the incident.

What is the role of a Personal Injury lawyer?

A personal injury lawyer will collect the facts and determine whether it is likely that some other person or company was careless and negligent in causing the incident. The lawyer, with legal expertise and experience, advances reasonable argument showing that the other person or company was careless and therefore at fault. The lawyer then negotiates with an insurance company for a maximum recovery. If an insurance company declines to settle or offers a very small amount of money, the lawyer will file your claim in court and formally demand compensation.